A Return To Michaux
December 15, 2021 § Leave a comment
The plans for a late Fall adventure began to take shape during the 3 day Indigenous Peoples Day weekend in October when I accepted an invitation (I invited myself) to spend some time with my longtime friends Larry and Melanie Butler at their cabin in the woods behind Woodward, Pa. As it so happened, this was also the weekend of Pennsylvania’s tremendously successful gravel bike ride UnPaved, which Larry and I planned to “Bandit Ride” a shorter segment. I brought all my Pennsylvania Lizard maps with me so we could take some time to glance at “possibilities”.
« Read the rest of this entry »Brokeback Mountain Weekend Dec 4-6 2020
April 1, 2021 § 1 Comment
The planning of this weekend has somewhat been discussed, as here for example, already, and perhaps there is some humor and purpose to scribing some of what the weekend actually entailed. There was at least one first for any of these “Weekend Warrior” type trips, and perhaps, to some degree, maybe another, though the former is much more notable, than the latter.
I call it a weekend, but really it’s a three day weekend. The average age of the crew, brought down somewhat by the recent addition of a one Dan G… (name protected to protect the innocent), hovers in the very high 50’s if not almost low 60’s, so, looking back (as I am at the moment) to all the weekends that have come before (and there were many), the trend (some would say not a great trend) has been towards less backpacking, and more hiking. That is to say, backpack in, establish a basecamp (I think one word works fine here), consume beers the rest of Friday which could (not always, but has) include a late night hike (but this weekend did not), and then a hike (sometimes challenging, sometimes not) on Saturday, leaving plenty of time to harvest more trapped CO2 in form of downed timber, followed by more beer consumption, and finally a backpack out. On occasion, there has been a late night hike as well, however, the few times that has occurred has been within the “late night hike rich” confines of Dolly Sods in West Virginia.
« Read the rest of this entry »The Halfway on the AT – Not the Winter Trip We Expected
January 19, 2020 § 2 Comments
You may recall from my previous post, that there was a plan and except for a little damage to Andy’s wife’s Infinity and a little bit of rain, everything was so far going to plan. We all arrived safely, ate huge breakfasts at The Elkhorn in Bendersville, and we pared everything down to all the food, beer and booze we needed to enjoy all ourselves for the weekend. We set out from our parked vehicles, and we headed South on the AT, which at the start was nothing more than getting out of the parking lot, and walking along the road until the trail turned right and started climbing past some local hunting cabins. The grade was a pretty easy grade, and there really wasn’t anything in this day that was expecting to be any real challenge.
« Read the rest of this entry »The Halfway on the AT – Getting There
January 16, 2020 § 2 Comments
This is a very misleading title, because I am no where near halfway covered in AT mileage. Let’s be clear. I have only done the following:
- NJ 72
- NY 81
- CT 51
- MA 91
- Most of Vermont 100+
- 16 miles in PA
- 10 miles in MD
- 20-30 miles in VA
That is it. I haven’t even walked a quarter of the AT, even if I note that I have done Jersey twice! So, when I title this “The Halfway” it is simply because our band of knuckleheads got together again for a weekend of fun in the woods, and we targeted Michaux State Forest, and more specifically Pine Grove Furnace which is where the AT Museum is located, and also the official halfway marker on the AT.
« Read the rest of this entry »Dolly Sods a.k.a Dahle Sods – 2001
August 18, 2017 § Leave a comment
In September of 2000, I started a new position at a small, growing fast startup called Tellium. I left IBM after only being with them for 2 months after AT&T sold our business unit to IBM for eventual outsourcing, so AT&T could sponsor the new stadium in Denver. There is no evidence that was the case, but the sponsorship deal was 200 million, and the IBM deal was about 190. At Tellium, I was hired to work on a team to in-source the Network Management software FROM India. Tellium was working night and day, and had just entered their third round of Venture funding, and they were gearing up for the big delivery. A brand new architecture in backbone network design, a mesh architecture with home-grown hardware and software.
Mountain Lake Wilderness – 2005
August 16, 2017 § Leave a comment
My first winter backpacking trip was a weekend on the AT out of High Point New Jersey during my first trimester break from college in 1977. I was a freshman at Penn State, and while I was home for the Christmas holidays, my buddy Chris suggested we do a weekend on the AT. I can’t say that everything went great on that trip, but I learned that you can backpack in the Winter, and it brings a different set of circumstances to bear each and every time.
Appalachian Trail – Annapolis Rocks
January 18, 2017 § Leave a comment
It was mid-October and I was feeling the itch to get back into the woods again. My recent adventures into the Banff Wilderness were still on my mind, and I didn’t want to have to wait until 2017 to hoist a pack onto my back and traipse through the woods. Fortunately I have friends who can be called upon when the woods urge hits, and I think I might have texted Larry, and before long we started one of those long running email chains to pick a date.
Big Bird's Adventures 